Given the fact that the extremist Christian right has only become more vicious and frothy as their dream of ushering in an American Theocracy continues to be our American nightmare, we need the People For the American Way's Right Wing Watch more than ever.
People For the American Way's Right Wing Watch is dedicated to monitoring and reporting on the activities of right-wing political organizations, in order to expose the agenda of the extreme Right. Our researchers monitor dozens of broadcasts, emails and websites, and use their expertise on right-wing movements to analyze and distill that information for the general public.
We hope that by shedding light on the activities of right-wing organizations, we can expose the risks that their extreme and intolerant agendas present to our country. We do not endorse the views of groups that we report on.
This site may also include postings by our affiliate People For the American Way Foundation and will be so designated.
No site can compare with the comprehensive work that Right Wing Watch does in keeping an eye on the ridiculous to the insulting to the downright dangerous extremists of our country. Every day, their website publishes stories and uploads videos of the extraordinarily vile things that come out of these radical's mouths. Keeping tabs on the likes of Pat Robertson and Bryan Fischer is a distasteful task requiring a strong stomach.
Perhaps no one has been more hateful than Gordon Klingenschmitt, the former US Navy Chaplain who was drummed out of the Navy in 2006 for disobeying an order by appearing in uniform at a political protest in front of the White House. Since then, he has involved himself in a project called Pray in Jesus Name and his virulently anti-gay television program in which he spouts some of the ugliest propaganda to be found.
Right Wing Watch has been posting excerpts of his program, highlighting some of his worst offenses. Klingenschmitt is making a bid to run for a House seat in the Colorado legislature and having his own words exposed by RWW isn't going to help him win. In desperation, he sought to stop RWW from exercising their free speech under Fair Use. On November 7, Right Wing Watch announced that Dr. Chaps (as he calls himself) was successful in petitioning YouTube to terminate RWW's account, claiming copyright violations.
Former chaplain Gordon James Klingenschmitt, who calls himself “Dr. Chaps,” got our YouTube account terminated today by filing copyright complaints against a handful of our videos, resulting in several thousand of our videos being taken down.
We have filed an appeal to YouTube and hope to get our channel restored shortly. If you would like to help, you can tweet @YouTube and urge them to expedite the review process.
Of course, Right Wing Watch never did violate copyright law as posting his videos is clearly protected by
Fair Use. Confident that they would win their appeal to YouTube, RWW only had to bide their time until their account was reinstated. Just this past Monday, Dr. Chaps was boasting about his "David takes on Goliath" win and even suggested that if RWW would only halt their monitoring of him, that he would be willing to drop the complaint and "forgive them."
Right Wing Watch's answer to him was to laugh in his face, letting him know in no uncertain terms that not only would they continue to report on his dangerous rhetoric, but that they would most certainly win their appeal with YouTube.
We don't have to beg Klingenschmitt's forgiveness and hope that he'll "be willing to drop the case and forgive" us because, by the middle of this week or so, his effort to shut us down by filling frivolous copyright claims against us should have run its course. Hopefully our account will be back up and running soon, simply by virtue of us having followed YouTube's standard procedure for challenging those who file phony copyright claims.
Today Right Wing Watch
announced victory stating that YouTube has
restored their account in full. I'm sure that chapped Dr. Chap's ass.
Look, Klingenschmitt is free to hold his opinions and say any damn thing he likes, no matter how disgusting. What he doesn't have a right to do is try to obstruct the rights of others to their own free speech. I applaud the work that Right Wing Watch does. It is important that extremists have a light shown on their bigotry and hatred. Congratulations are in order as is are our collective thanks for the great work they do.
